Celluloid Heroes

When Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) receives the hundred-year-old telegram from Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) at the end of Back to the Future Part 2, telling him that he's alive and well in the Old West, it also has another tidbit of information - that he's hidden the time machine in an old cave outside of town. But Marty needs some help getting it running.

So he returns to town just in time to see himself leave to go back to the future for the first time, and he surprises the original Doc (the 1955 Doc), and tells him all about what's happening. Or at least, enough so that he doesn't know anything about his future, because Marty doesn't know that Doc has read the note that he gave him, telling him about the terrorists in the original Back to the Future.

With Doc on board, he gets some help getting the DeLorean back up and running, and using the Mr. Fusion to generate the power, Marty heads back to 1885 to see if he can rescue Doc and head back to 1985 - which will hopefully be the same as they left it!

Read All of "Back to the Future Part 3 (1990) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 28, 2007 in Adventure

Raymond Avilla (Andy Garcia) is the newest officer to join the Internal Affairs Department, and he and partner Amy Wallace (Laurie Metcalf) are investigating Van Stretch (William Baldwin), who they suspect of using drugs, among other things. It appears that his spending habits don't match up with his income levels, and they want to know why.

Along the way they encounter Van's partner, Dennis Peck (Richard Gere), and it seems that Van isn't the only one with something to hide - but Peck may be a whole lot better at it.

Read All of "Internal Affairs (1990) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 28, 2007 in Drama

Private First Class Franklin Fairchild Bean (Charlie Sheen) is ready to get out of the army. When he learns that his father dies, he's had enough - though it's never really explained just why he's had enough. Perhaps he did it for his father, and now he's ready to get out. We do see that he was forced to go into the military, or at least to military school, and perhaps now he's ready to get out. In any case, he wants out and he wants out now.

It would seem that the prevailing knowledge at the time (this is in the sixties) is if you have "tattoos that show", you will get kicked out. So Bean finds a tattoo artist that will do the work and gets a couple of 8 balls (the kind you play pool with) on the back of his hands - one on each. Then he gets drunk and gets thrown out of a bar window. Needless to say, his superiors aren't happy. But it seems that he isn't going to get out as easily as he had hoped, either.

Read All of "Cadence (1990) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 28, 2007 in Drama

Jonathan Parker (Peter Berg) is your typical high school athlete, who is out trying to impress his girlfriend, Alison (Camille Cooper). But for some reason he can't seem to keep things straight whenever she's around, and one day he slams into the goal post, and it looks like he gives himself a concussion. That's not the worst part, though, because that night he has a nightmare where he sees his brother, sister and mother killed by a serial killer who is stalking the city.

When he tries to convince his father (the police chief) about what he saw, his dad doesn't want to hear about it. But when his family turns up dead, and he somehow knows the details, suddenly they are very interested - but not in a casual sense. They want to know just how he came to know what he does. That's when things get a little more interesting. Unfortunately, Jonathan isn't interested in just telling them. He wants to help catch this guy.

Read All of "Shocker (1989) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 28, 2007 in Horror

While this is billed as the life stories of the six men who raised the American flag over Iwo Jima, in actuality, it's actually something much different than that. For starters, the flag that they raised was the second flag. The first one was taken down because some politician wanted it for themselves, so it had to be taken down for "safekeeping". To complicate matters, the men who raised the second flag aren't exactly the same as those who raised the first. And finally, the men who did raise the flag aren't all alive.

So this actually chronicles the events of three survivors of the event who have returned to the United States to embark on a tour to raise money for the war. That's right, they are brought home to run around selling the cause to everyone else who's at home. Not being there, I can't speak to the truth of the events, but it certainly has the sound of truth, and it was handled in such a way that I can buy it.

Read All of "Flags of Our Fathers (2006) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 27, 2007 in Drama

John Trace (Stephen Baldwin) is a cop, but he isn't exactly on the good side of his superiors. That is a privilege reserved for officers who don't have a tendency to shoot people, and Trace is exactly the opposite. He seems to have this gift for shooting people, and that has him in a certain amount of hot water - for the fourth time in the last few months. It's attracting the wrong kind of attention.

Lucky for him it's also managed to get noticed by Lieutenant Laine Devon (Chazz Palminteri), though that may not be a good thing either. At least it will help in the immediate term, for the Lieutenant can help Trace get out of the latest hole he's found himself in by getting some evidence planted and taking the heat off. But that just lands him in an even deeper mess, for now he owes him one, and that's when things really get ugly.

Read All of "Scarred City (1998) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 27, 2007 in Action

The chickens of Tweedy Chicken Farm are generally content, with the possible exception of Ginger (Julia Sawalha). She seems to be the only one who realizes that things may be fine if you are laying eggs, but as soon as the eggs stop, things aren't so good for chickens.

Let's face it, chickens may not be the brightest, but Ginger is a different sort, so she's constantly planning how to escape from the farm. She just has one problem, and that's that to get one or two chickens out is easy. To get the whole lot out is a different matter entirely.

One day, as the chickens are going about their normal business, they get a visitor from outside - quite unusual indeed, but even more so because he arrives by flying, and most chickens can't fly. Ginger is downright ecstatic.

Read All of "Chicken Run (2000) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 26, 2007 in Family

During the daily grind, it seems as if we may never get out. For the Harvey family, that all changed one day when family leader Martin Harvey (Martin Short) gets a message that they have been left a sailboat once owned by Clark Gable. All they have to do is pick it up from Saint Pomme de Terre (loosely translated as 'Saint Potato').

This sounds like the perfect opportunity for a family vacation, especially since this boat may be worth a quarter of a million dollars. After contacting a yacht broker in Miami, they get a captain who will meet them there and help them sail the boat back to the US. Unfortunately, once they see the boat, they determine that it's not quite what they expected. It's seen better days.

Calling the broker, they inquire about what it might be worth in less-than-perfect condition. Sensing that the boat is a pile of junk, the broker sends a local captain instead - Captain Ron (Kurt Russell).

Read All of "Captain Ron (1992) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 22, 2007 in Adventure

When Randall "Memphis" Raines (Nicolas Cage) decided that he was no longer going to steal cars, the reported car theft in the area dropped. Precipitously. But he's back. Not because he wants to be back, but because he has to be back. It seems that his little brother, Kip (Giovanni Ribisi), has decided to join the family business vacated by his brother.

This is a problem for two reasons. One, because it's the reason that Memphis left in the first place. Two because Kip isn't nearly as good as his older brother, and now he's in big to bloodthirsty Raymond Vincent Calitri (Christopher Eccleston). If Calitri doesn't get the fifty cars that Kip owes him, he plans on killing Kip. So Memphis decides to come out of retirement for one last boost.

Read All of "Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 21, 2007 in Action

Seth Warner (Aidan Quinn) is having a bad year. At the beach, his wife kisses him, then goes in for a dip. When he wakes some indeterminate amount of time later, she's gone. There was no apparent struggle, she didn't seem to leave him, she is just gone. Not long after (it seems to be shortly thereafter, but it isn't stated), he is told that he's being fired, for no apparent reason.

One thing after another simply goes wrong. It's like he's Job, and he is being tested. He decides that it isn't fair, and he wants an audience with the almighty, so he decides to end it all one night on a building. Neighbors call his in-laws, Rachel (Courteney Coxhttp://celluloidheroes.org/tag/Actor: ) and Harry (Anthony LaPaglia) to talk him down, which they do. They also take him in. But he still wants to talk to God. Face-to-face.

Read All of "Commandments (1997) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 21, 2007 in Drama

Joe Dirt (David Spade) is perhaps your average janitor, if you consider your average janitor to have a mullet wig that was put on him as a boy to cover a hole in his head, and now it's been fused into the skull when the bones finally grew together, and a life so bad that he can do little about it but look at the bright side of life. If he didn't, he would probably have given up long ago.

So one day when his employer, Zander Kelly (Dennis Miller) comes across him cleaning the lobby and decides to put him on the show, the whole world gets to hear about the adventures of Joe Dirt and just how he got to where he is today. Perhaps the strangest thing of all is that by the end of the story, what started as poking some fun at the guy who didn't fit turns into a story of triumph.

Read All of "Joe Dirt (2001) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 20, 2007 in Adventure

This movie starts what is perhaps the classic time-travel trilogy. While it is definitely not the most serious of films, that may be what is most charming about it. The fact that Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), a high-school kid from California, can jump in a car in order to save himself from Libyan terrorists may seem dated now, but in 1985 when the movie came out? This was classic cinema. Okay, that might be a bit over-the-top, even then. But what makes the movie is that it's fun to watch.

Marty is friends with Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), and Marty receives an invitation to meet Doc at the mall one night to help film a science experiment. When he gets there, he finds that Doc has turned a DeLorean into a time machine, and a somewhat surprised Marty watches as Doc sends Einstein (Doc's dog) through time in the car. It all goes awry when the Libyans show up to demand their uranium back. I mean this is good stuff!

Read All of "Back to the Future (1985) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 15, 2007 in Adventure

When Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) receives the hundred-year-old telegram from Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) at the end of Back to the Future Part 2, telling him that he's alive and well in the Old West, it also has another tidbit of information - that he's hidden the time machine in an old cave outside of town. But Marty needs some help getting it running.

So he returns to town just in time to see himself leave to go back to the future for the first time, and he surprises the original Doc (the 1955 Doc), and tells him all about what's happening. Or at least, enough so that he doesn't know anything about his future, because Marty doesn't know that Doc has read the note that he gave him, telling him about the terrorists in the original Back to the Future.

With Doc on board, he gets some help getting the DeLorean back up and running, and using the Mr. Fusion to generate the power, Marty heads back to 1885 to see if he can rescue Doc and head back to 1985 - which will hopefully be the same as they left it!

Read All of "Back to the Future Part 3 (1990) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 28, 2007 in Adventure

Raymond Avilla (Andy Garcia) is the newest officer to join the Internal Affairs Department, and he and partner Amy Wallace (Laurie Metcalf) are investigating Van Stretch (William Baldwin), who they suspect of using drugs, among other things. It appears that his spending habits don't match up with his income levels, and they want to know why.

Along the way they encounter Van's partner, Dennis Peck (Richard Gere), and it seems that Van isn't the only one with something to hide - but Peck may be a whole lot better at it.

Read All of "Internal Affairs (1990) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 28, 2007 in Drama

Private First Class Franklin Fairchild Bean (Charlie Sheen) is ready to get out of the army. When he learns that his father dies, he's had enough - though it's never really explained just why he's had enough. Perhaps he did it for his father, and now he's ready to get out. We do see that he was forced to go into the military, or at least to military school, and perhaps now he's ready to get out. In any case, he wants out and he wants out now.

It would seem that the prevailing knowledge at the time (this is in the sixties) is if you have "tattoos that show", you will get kicked out. So Bean finds a tattoo artist that will do the work and gets a couple of 8 balls (the kind you play pool with) on the back of his hands - one on each. Then he gets drunk and gets thrown out of a bar window. Needless to say, his superiors aren't happy. But it seems that he isn't going to get out as easily as he had hoped, either.

Read All of "Cadence (1990) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 28, 2007 in Drama

Jonathan Parker (Peter Berg) is your typical high school athlete, who is out trying to impress his girlfriend, Alison (Camille Cooper). But for some reason he can't seem to keep things straight whenever she's around, and one day he slams into the goal post, and it looks like he gives himself a concussion. That's not the worst part, though, because that night he has a nightmare where he sees his brother, sister and mother killed by a serial killer who is stalking the city.

When he tries to convince his father (the police chief) about what he saw, his dad doesn't want to hear about it. But when his family turns up dead, and he somehow knows the details, suddenly they are very interested - but not in a casual sense. They want to know just how he came to know what he does. That's when things get a little more interesting. Unfortunately, Jonathan isn't interested in just telling them. He wants to help catch this guy.

Read All of "Shocker (1989) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 28, 2007 in Horror

While this is billed as the life stories of the six men who raised the American flag over Iwo Jima, in actuality, it's actually something much different than that. For starters, the flag that they raised was the second flag. The first one was taken down because some politician wanted it for themselves, so it had to be taken down for "safekeeping". To complicate matters, the men who raised the second flag aren't exactly the same as those who raised the first. And finally, the men who did raise the flag aren't all alive.

So this actually chronicles the events of three survivors of the event who have returned to the United States to embark on a tour to raise money for the war. That's right, they are brought home to run around selling the cause to everyone else who's at home. Not being there, I can't speak to the truth of the events, but it certainly has the sound of truth, and it was handled in such a way that I can buy it.

Read All of "Flags of Our Fathers (2006) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 27, 2007 in Drama

John Trace (Stephen Baldwin) is a cop, but he isn't exactly on the good side of his superiors. That is a privilege reserved for officers who don't have a tendency to shoot people, and Trace is exactly the opposite. He seems to have this gift for shooting people, and that has him in a certain amount of hot water - for the fourth time in the last few months. It's attracting the wrong kind of attention.

Lucky for him it's also managed to get noticed by Lieutenant Laine Devon (Chazz Palminteri), though that may not be a good thing either. At least it will help in the immediate term, for the Lieutenant can help Trace get out of the latest hole he's found himself in by getting some evidence planted and taking the heat off. But that just lands him in an even deeper mess, for now he owes him one, and that's when things really get ugly.

Read All of "Scarred City (1998) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 27, 2007 in Action

The chickens of Tweedy Chicken Farm are generally content, with the possible exception of Ginger (Julia Sawalha). She seems to be the only one who realizes that things may be fine if you are laying eggs, but as soon as the eggs stop, things aren't so good for chickens.

Let's face it, chickens may not be the brightest, but Ginger is a different sort, so she's constantly planning how to escape from the farm. She just has one problem, and that's that to get one or two chickens out is easy. To get the whole lot out is a different matter entirely.

One day, as the chickens are going about their normal business, they get a visitor from outside - quite unusual indeed, but even more so because he arrives by flying, and most chickens can't fly. Ginger is downright ecstatic.

Read All of "Chicken Run (2000) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 26, 2007 in Family

During the daily grind, it seems as if we may never get out. For the Harvey family, that all changed one day when family leader Martin Harvey (Martin Short) gets a message that they have been left a sailboat once owned by Clark Gable. All they have to do is pick it up from Saint Pomme de Terre (loosely translated as 'Saint Potato').

This sounds like the perfect opportunity for a family vacation, especially since this boat may be worth a quarter of a million dollars. After contacting a yacht broker in Miami, they get a captain who will meet them there and help them sail the boat back to the US. Unfortunately, once they see the boat, they determine that it's not quite what they expected. It's seen better days.

Calling the broker, they inquire about what it might be worth in less-than-perfect condition. Sensing that the boat is a pile of junk, the broker sends a local captain instead - Captain Ron (Kurt Russell).

Read All of "Captain Ron (1992) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 22, 2007 in Adventure

When Randall "Memphis" Raines (Nicolas Cage) decided that he was no longer going to steal cars, the reported car theft in the area dropped. Precipitously. But he's back. Not because he wants to be back, but because he has to be back. It seems that his little brother, Kip (Giovanni Ribisi), has decided to join the family business vacated by his brother.

This is a problem for two reasons. One, because it's the reason that Memphis left in the first place. Two because Kip isn't nearly as good as his older brother, and now he's in big to bloodthirsty Raymond Vincent Calitri (Christopher Eccleston). If Calitri doesn't get the fifty cars that Kip owes him, he plans on killing Kip. So Memphis decides to come out of retirement for one last boost.

Read All of "Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 21, 2007 in Action

Seth Warner (Aidan Quinn) is having a bad year. At the beach, his wife kisses him, then goes in for a dip. When he wakes some indeterminate amount of time later, she's gone. There was no apparent struggle, she didn't seem to leave him, she is just gone. Not long after (it seems to be shortly thereafter, but it isn't stated), he is told that he's being fired, for no apparent reason.

One thing after another simply goes wrong. It's like he's Job, and he is being tested. He decides that it isn't fair, and he wants an audience with the almighty, so he decides to end it all one night on a building. Neighbors call his in-laws, Rachel (Courteney Coxhttp://celluloidheroes.org/tag/Actor: ) and Harry (Anthony LaPaglia) to talk him down, which they do. They also take him in. But he still wants to talk to God. Face-to-face.

Read All of "Commandments (1997) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 21, 2007 in Drama

Joe Dirt (David Spade) is perhaps your average janitor, if you consider your average janitor to have a mullet wig that was put on him as a boy to cover a hole in his head, and now it's been fused into the skull when the bones finally grew together, and a life so bad that he can do little about it but look at the bright side of life. If he didn't, he would probably have given up long ago.

So one day when his employer, Zander Kelly (Dennis Miller) comes across him cleaning the lobby and decides to put him on the show, the whole world gets to hear about the adventures of Joe Dirt and just how he got to where he is today. Perhaps the strangest thing of all is that by the end of the story, what started as poking some fun at the guy who didn't fit turns into a story of triumph.

Read All of "Joe Dirt (2001) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 20, 2007 in Adventure

This movie starts what is perhaps the classic time-travel trilogy. While it is definitely not the most serious of films, that may be what is most charming about it. The fact that Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), a high-school kid from California, can jump in a car in order to save himself from Libyan terrorists may seem dated now, but in 1985 when the movie came out? This was classic cinema. Okay, that might be a bit over-the-top, even then. But what makes the movie is that it's fun to watch.

Marty is friends with Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), and Marty receives an invitation to meet Doc at the mall one night to help film a science experiment. When he gets there, he finds that Doc has turned a DeLorean into a time machine, and a somewhat surprised Marty watches as Doc sends Einstein (Doc's dog) through time in the car. It all goes awry when the Libyans show up to demand their uranium back. I mean this is good stuff!

Read All of "Back to the Future (1985) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 15, 2007 in Adventure